


Comfort

by kiss_me_cassie



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Male-Female Friendship, Missing Scene, Natasha Romanov's Arrow Necklace, bubblefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-05-06 00:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5396474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiss_me_cassie/pseuds/kiss_me_cassie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets that take place at Sam's house in The Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The world needs more bubblefic (or so Em Meredith has brainwashed me into believing.) I needed to write something fluffy and not smutty. I succeeded on the latter, not entirely on the former. Much love to Zandra for the insightful comments that helped improve this immensely.

Steve breathed in deeply, glad they had decided to seek refuge with Sam for a variety of reasons. But for right now, he was mostly thankful to have use of a real bathroom.

He was about to turn the water on for the shower when his hand moved to the tub taps instead. Steaming water gushed from the faucet. Almost without thought, he picked up the a bottle of shampoo that sat on the ledge and upended it under the flow. 

_Why not_? he thought. When he was little, his mama had fixed him makeshift bubble baths on the worst days. Somehow, those baths had always helped make things feel a little better. Maybe one would help now. Not in any real way, he knew, but maybe for just a few minutes he could pretend that everything would turn out all right in the end. Or at least not as badly as he anticipated they would.

Nothing could be worse than finding the organization you worked for, that you had helped to create in myriad ways, was corrupt. Or finding out that your best friend in the world, who you thought was dead, had been alive for years. Worse still, he'd been tortured and twisted and turned into someone's weapon. Nothing would really help to make any of those things better.

But a bubble bath might offer a few moments where maybe he could _feel_ like they weren't so awful.

Undressing quickly, he sank down into the hot water. He was halfway to wallowing when there was a quick rap on the door and Natasha appeared, taking in the scene before her. He thought he ought to feel shame at having her in the bathroom with him like this, but after the week they'd had, it was hard to muster up much of any reaction to her seeing him in such an intimate way.

"Cap, are you taking a bubble bath?" she asked, her previously concerned expression quickly turning to one of amusement.

"No, of course not." Her expression didn't waver at his outright lie and he squirmed a little. "My mother. On the worst days, she'd mix in a little soap with the bathwater as a treat. It's… comforting."

"Nothing wrong with comfort," Natasha told him, sitting down on the closed toilet seat. "When I was growing up, we didn't get any comfort." She pursed her lips, and for a moment she was lost in the past, her eyes seeing something distant that he wasn't sure he wanted to know more about. "Take softness in any form, wherever you can get it. Even if it's a lukewarm bubble bath."

"I'm not sure I'd even know where to find real softness or comfort anymore," he sighed.

She smiled at him, but he could tell that it was another facade, that she was still lost in the past. "I'd recommend a nice woman for you, but my previous attempts at setting you up haven't been overly successful."

They sat in what to anyone else would have been an uncomfortable silence but for them seemed perfectly natural, until Natasha started fiddling with her necklace. It was an unnatural gesture for her; Natasha rarely fidgeted. Steve raised an eyebrow. Her lips quirked and she stood suddenly. "I'm going to try May again. See if they've gotten any word on Barton yet."

"I'm sure he's fine," Steve said, but both of them knew it to be a lie. There was no way either of them could tell with any certainty how he was. Or where.

She gave him a half-smile. "Enjoy the rest of your bubble bath," she said before clicking the door shut behind her.

Steve sighed and sank down lower in the water, mulling over what Natasha had said. Comfort. He had a feeling he was going to need a lot of it in the coming weeks and months.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incomplete snippet of Sam and Natasha talking in CA:TWS. Because some characters won't stop chatting and let me move on to other projects until I purge them.

"You need anything?" Sam asked, appearing in the open doorway of the guest room's bathroom. 

Natasha looked at him in the mirror, where she was trying unsuccessfully to get her wavy hair under control. "Yeah. You got a flat iron anywhere around here?"

"Do I look like I have a flat iron around?"

She shrugged. "You never know."

"As it happens, there is one an old girlfriend left somewhere under here," he said, gently pushing her aside to root around under the sink. "Should have tossed it out a while ago, but somehow just never got around to it."

She accepted the iron gratefully and then tilted her head in the direction of the other bedroom. "Does Steve know?"

"About the flat iron?"

She rolled her eyes as she plugged in the appliance. "About the ex-girlfriend. Assuming she is an ex."

Sam shrugged. "Not sure it's ever came up in conversation, no. You think I'm lying about her being an ex?"

"I think it's a little unusual, keeping something like this around," Natasha said. She picked up the now hot iron and slid a section of hair through it, smiling at the smooth result. "On the other hand, lucky me that you did." She slid another section of hair through. "You think any of my exes keep stuff of mine around their apartments?"

Sam snickered. "Yours? Assuming any of them are still alive? Nope, not a one."

"Exactly." Natasha paused in straightening her hair and pursed her lips, thinking of the best way to phrase things. "Steve's very… fragile right now. You know?"

Sam quickly sobered. "If this is your big sister talk about hurting poor little Stevie…"

Natasha smiled predatorily at him. "It isn't. Not exactly anyhow."

"Then what is it?" he asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Just a reminder. I don't want to see him hurt." She fiddled with the necklace at her throat. "He needs someone he can count on to have his back."

Sam nodded. "He's got it."

**Author's Note:**

> The "take softness" line is stolen, though if I read it in another fic or read it in a novel, I couldn't tell you. But I love the concept and thank whoever came up with it.


End file.
